The American Dance Festival announced the lineup for their 2011 season this afternoon. While longtime dance goers will hardly be shocked at the number of usual suspects listed among its 14 mainstage presentations between June 9 and July 23, the news that, after 43 years, this summer will be co-director Charles Reinhart’s last with the festival should raise at least a few eyebrows across the dance world.

So, for that matter, might the festival’s choice for the 2011 Samuel H. Scripps Award: choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Despite an internationally celebrated career that has spanned 30 years and inspired festivals itself, the 2011 season marks the choreographer’s first performance—ever—at ADF. A check for $50,000 accompanying the award for a lifetime’s achievement sweetens the deal when her 27-year-old company, Rosas, debuts—at least, at ADF—with that group’s first work from 1983, Rosas dannst Rosas, June 10-12.

Tina Ruisinger

2011 Samuel Scripps Award winner Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker

Others making their first ADF mainstage appearances during this summer's "Something New, Something Treasured" season include TAO Dance Theater, a young modern dance company from China (6/20-22), Israeli dance duo Yossi Berg & Oded Graf (6/14-15), and Taiwanese choreographer Blareyaung Pagarlava (7/18-20).

After her Pity Party and Various Stages of Drowning moved audiences last summer, we want to see the world premieres of Rosie Herrera’s Dining Alone (6/27-29), and a new work Martha Clarke will create on ADF dance students (7/18-20). Shen Wei is slated to present a world premiere that will display, according to press advances, “a new…side of [his] artistic skill” (7/14-16). The apparently immortal Paul Taylor debuts a new work, The Uncommitted (7/21-23), after Pilobolus presents the world premieres of three team-ups: with Butoh artist Takuya Muramatsu from Dairakudakan, the "engineers, programmers and pilots" at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)—and the Grammy-winning band OK Go (6/30-7/2).

Among notable reconstructions: Bill T. Jones remounts D-Man in the Waters, his 1989 work in honor of deceased company member Damien Acquavella, to live accompaniment by the Durham Symphony (6/16-18), before Dayton Contemporary Dance Company restages Donald McKayle’s 1959 masterpiece, Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder. (The company shows that work on a shared bill in which Ronald K. Brown and EVIDENCE presents their newest work, On Earth Together, to a Stevie Wonder soundtrack, June 23-25). Eiko & Koma continues their multi-year 40th anniversary celebration with a recreation of 1995’s River in Duke Gardens (7/5-6), and two associates of Twyla Tharp reconstruct Sweet Fields on ADF students (7/18-20), three years after Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s performance of it here in 2008.

Standouts among the other dates this summer include a performance of the complete Chapters from a Broken Novel, Doug Varone’s new work that audiences in Raleigh and Asheville saw tantalizing excerpts from in February (July 11-13). And after the austere dynamics of his 2009 mainstage duets, Emanuel Gat returns with his full company for the U.S. premiere of Brilliant Colors, July 7—9.

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance CompanyD-Man in the Waters (1989), Spent Days Out Yonder (excerpt from 2000’s You Walk?)Thursday—Saturday, June 16—18DPACD-Man in the Waters (1989), honoring deceased company member Damien Acquavella, is a “living memory of Jones’ firsthand experience with death, and the resiliency of the human spirit.” Durham Symphony will provide live musical accompaniment in both works.

Tao Dance Theater

TAO Dance TheaterWeight X 3 (2009), 2 (2011)Monday—Wednesday, June 20—22Reynolds Theater, DukeUS debut for quickly rising Chinese modern dance company, whose work reaches “highest level of technical virtuosity,” and “challenges all previous conceptions of modern dance.” Weight X 3 (2009): “permeated with concepts of physicality and humanity” 2 (2011): set to a score “from the rhythms of spoken and written word,” “investigates the natural progression of movement as it abounds without limitations.”

EVIDENCE:On Earth Together (2011), Grace (1999)Dayton Contemporary Dance Company:Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder (1959), Vespers (1986)June 23—25DPACDCDC: Donald McKayle’s masterpiece Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder (1959) “a sorrowful glimpse into the lost hope of men on a chain gang as they yearn for their freedom”; Ulysses Dove’s Vespers (1986), “captures the soul and deep spirituality of the women in Southern churches.” EVIDENCE: On Earth Together (2011), latest work, set to Stevie Wonder

Pity Party

Rosie HerreraDining Alone (2011), Pity Party (new version of 2010 work)June 27—29 Reynolds Theater, DukeWorld premiere of ADF commissioned work. See her remarks on Dining Alone in our interview from last summer.

PilobolusUntitled (1975), world premieres of Seraph, All Is Not Lost and an untitled workJune 30—July 2 DPACCompany’s 40th anniversary. Untitled “examines the profound relationship between men and women.” Three world premieres:1. Collaboration with Japanese Butoh artist, Takuya Muramatsu, longtime associated with Dairakudakan2. Seraph, collaboration with MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) under the direction of Daniela Rus, “investigates the relationship between human and machine” 3. All Is Not Lost, “live companion” to Pilobolus' “video collaboration” with OK Go. Work explores “perspectives, gravity, and dimensionality through a kaleidoscopic view of human connection.”

Philip Trager

Eiko and Koma in River

Eiko & KomaRiver (1995)July 5-6 at 9:15 pmSarah P. Duke GardensDuo’s 40th anniversary celebration continues. Artists perform in a stream, in a work that "transcends... previous notions of life and time and challenges the relationship of audience to artist."

Emanuel Gat DanceBrilliant Corners (2011)July 7—9 at 8 pmDPACUS premiere of work inspired by Thelonius Monk’s 1957 album of the same name — although Monk’s music does not appear in the piece. Original score by Gat. A “choreographic playground” which “investigates the human and mechanical forces that create what is seen onstage.”

Shen Wei Dance Artsunnamed world premiereJuly 14— 16 at 8 pmDPACShen Wei “ infuses his riveting and timeless movement vocabulary with the use of new artistic mediums,” in a premiere that “will show a new and undoubtedly captivating side of Shen Wei’s artistic skill.”

Bulareyaung Pagarlava

Past/Forward: Sweet Fields (Twyla Tharp, 1996) and world premieres by Martha Clarke and Bulareyaung PagarlavaJuly 18—20 at 8 pmReynolds Theater, DukeThis series sets historic reconstructions and new works on ADF School students.